thinkbroadband

Broadband promises - public does not believe the politicians
Wednesday 21 November 2012 11:00:13 by
Andrew Ferguson

Back in June 2009 when the Digital Britain report was originally published
there was a sense of optimism for broadband, but while great strides have been
made it seems the public still need lots of convincing. In our most recent poll
we asked our visitors to vote on whether they think Labour would have actually
met its 2012 deadline for 2 Mbps to be available to virtually all households in
the UK.

Click image for larger version of letter

The above chart is based on over 1,400 responses to the poll, and it clearly
shows that the weight of opinion is that if Labour had won the 2010 General
Election, people believe they would not have met the 2012 target (74% saying
they would have failed to meet the target, and only 16% believing they
would).

Click image for larger version of letter

The weight of pessimism amongst public is revealed when asked about the
current 2015 target for the USC, that is being run by the BDUK which was
originally formed by the Labour Government and has had its goals re-arranged by
the current coalition. The coalition has only 14% of those responding believing
the 2015 2 Mbps target will be met, and that is with the 90% of UK households
been able to access broadband at 2 Mbps (satellite services are excluded from
this statistic), which is actually less than the 16% who thought Labour would
actually deliver.

Click image for larger version of letter

The final question in the poll, reveals a much more divided opinion with the
balance going towards superfast broadband (36%) being the most important goal
from the current BDUK projects (34% believe basic and superfast are of equal
importance, 28% favour the basic broadband target as the most important). There
have been numerous reports calling for ubiquity of broadband access to be the
main goal for any broadband projects, but this final question shows that while
28% feel that way, superfast services, or the current dual-focus approach are
preferred.

Beyond the economic situation in the UK, perhaps the biggest reason behind
the pessimism is that people have heard of better broadband coming to the final
third of the UK for three years, yet very few have seen any actual evidence of
this happening. Now the BDUK has the blanket EU State Aid Approval we may see
projects picking up pace. We also need those responsible for projects to stop
posing in front of tractors, or talking of rural broadband, the projects cross
the boundaries between green fields and views of other cloned housing.

Comments

Posted by
camieabz over 4 years ago
So splitting the 'equal importance' between the two, we get: Superfast 53% Basic 45% (or is it 70% / 62% ?)

Do you have any rollout/coverage data back there to compare to the polling data?

I wonder if folk are caring less for the super part, just as long as they get a stable, reliable connection which can do the majority of tasks?

Posted by
andrew ( staff member)
over 4 years ago
If my to-do list was not longer than a roll of sellotape I could do something.

Posted by
otester over 4 years ago
We need to roll back regulations/taxes which prevent us from having super fast broadband FOR ALL.

Posted by
leexgx over 4 years ago
i was between superfast broadband and basic broadband (5mb+, 2mb is to low)

superfast broadband for all is what I prefer but that's really wishful and most likely impractical for an small 5-10% of the uk (but bt seem to be happy to let 30% no have good broadband speeds)
i just think all Cabs where possible (as BT have an thing with Skiping cabs leaving bunch of houses stuck on 0.5mb or lower BB) should be upgraded to FTTC

Posted by
techguy over 4 years ago
No one really believes a politician's comment on any subject do they?

And with central government's woeful record on IT projects I'd be even less inclined to believe this.

They usually don't have a firm grasp on the technicalities of what they are talking about and are just jumping on the bandwagon of a popular subject (or that their advisers have told them is popular)

Posted by
WWWombat over 4 years ago
Good job central government isn't actually managing an IT project here then, isn't it? Only pumping money into one managed by someone else.

For me, we need both components right now - partly to get FTTC as far out there as possible, and partly to ensure that no man is left behind.